10 Basic Jewellery Making Tools You Need to Get Started

So you’ve been inspired to start making your own jewellery? Fabulous! Whatever it is that brought you here, be it your love for handmade designs or an urge to get creative with your own two hands, we’ve got something in common, so welcome to the Kookeli club 🙂

The first thing you need to know about Kookeli is that we love supporting those who are new to jewellery making and other crafts, which is why we like to make it easy for you to find the information you need to get started.

This week we’ll be helping you flush out all of the unnecessary tools while guiding you on which ones you really need to get your very first jewellery making project underway. Here are 10 tools to tick of your list first:

Scissors

No matter whether you are stringing, beading, weaving or working with wire, you’ll require a pair of sharp and sturdy scissors. You never quite know when or why you’re going to need them, but trust us – you will need them at some stage!

Wire Cutters

A standard pair of wire cutters is the second tool you should look to add to your collection. Wire cutters assist you with the things scissors can’t, such as cutting through headpins, eyepins and jewellery stringing wire. Of course, it’s important for both beginners and experience jewellery makers to be careful when using sharp tools like this.

Round Nose Pliers

Round nose pliers are specialised plierscharacterised by their rounded, tapering jaws and most commonly used for creating loops in pieces of wire by jewellers or electricians. If there’s any piece you create that requires a nice smooth curve, this tool will have your back and enable you to create beautiful bends like no other.

Chain Nose Pliers

Chain nose pliers are similar looking to round nose pliers, but there is a difference. The chain nose plier has a flat surface, which is ideal for gripping and securing wire without marring it. With extra fine tips chain nose pliers is a must have tool for every beader. Useful for crimping, jump rings and wire working.

Flat Nose Pliers

The flat nose plier works in the same way as all other pliers, the only thing setting it apart from the rest is that it has a much wider surface. They are great for holding wire tight whilst you shape it and are sure to come in useful for many crafts projects, including small woodwork and beadwork.

Crimp Tool

The crimp tool is really easy to use with crimp beads and crimp tubes. For those of you that don’t know, crimp beads or tubes are used to secure clasps on the end of beading wire. Sometimes they’re also used to create illusion necklaces, by keeping beads in a particular position. In order to secure crimp beads or tubes, you need a crimping tool and that’s exactly why it makes it into this list. It’s a practical tool that will help assist you with both basic and advanced jewellery designs.

Lighted Magnifying Glass

When working with small objects, such as beads, catches and clasps, it can be hard for the eye to concentrate in great detail for long periods of time. Jewellery making is fiddly work, which is part of the fun, but to make the most of it invest in a lighted magnifying glass. A lighted magnifying glass will lessen the strain you put on your eyes and allow you to observe the object you’re working on properly. You’ll be able to discover things you’ve never seen before…

Bead Tweezers

Household tweezers will do for a while, and by a while we mean an hour or so, before you get fed up of beads slipping and pinging out from the prongs and move onto something else all together. Save yourself the aggravation and purchase yourself some proper beads tweezers, with metal ‘buds’ at the end designed to help you grasp small, delicate objects and place them precisely where they should be.

Bead Stoppers

Accidents happen, which is something you have to accept in life. However, when you’ve spend hours threading beads and they end up, somehow (you know how if you have kids), sliding right off the other end, scattering bouncing beads all over the place like something out of a horror film, there’s good reason to look for a solution. Our solution is easy and it goes by the name of bead stoppers. Bead stoppers have a simple concept – all you do is squeeze the loops on either end, open up the springs, insert your bead wire or thread into between one of the springs and release the loops to keep your beads in place.

Your imagination!

And last but most certainly not least, is your imagination. There’s no better tool out there, so use it – chances are it will open up possibilities you never knew existed.

Of course, as your skillset grows, you’ll require more advanced tools, such as tube cutters, holders, ring clamps, drills, reamers and vices – but that’s for another blog, another time.